


the war, with wings

by parsnipit



Series: with wings [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: -zuko 2k20, Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Slash, Team Bonding, Wing Grooming, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, and it hurts, as far as the zukka goes, but like with wings, sokka especially makes me have feelings, sometimes i think about how they were all child soldiers, the Boys are Bantering, they deserve to rest, this is just the gaang learning to love each other over the course of a war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25557178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsnipit/pseuds/parsnipit
Summary: sokka doesn’t know when he forgot what his mother’s wings looked like. he knows that the forgetting didn’t happen all at once, that it was slow and quiet and insidious, just like he knows maybeforgettingisn’t the right term, knowsbeing replacedmight be more appropriate because when he tries to remember mom’s face all he sees is katara’s, and when he thinks of her wings—when sokka thinks of his mother’s wings, he sees sleek brown feathers laced through with dull silver. he sees soft white undersides and chalky down. he sees juvenile plumage so very like his own, quiet and unassuming, on two long, sharply angled wings. he sees katara’s wings when he tries to think of his mother’s, and it stings like betrayal.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: with wings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862083
Comments: 57
Kudos: 393





	the war, with wings

**Author's Note:**

> atla renaissance? sign me uP LADS!! i was super thrilled to get the chance to rewatch this series and read all of the (absolutely phenomenal!) new fanfic there is now. i had to pay tribute to it with something of my own! you've probably inferred by now that this is a wingfic, and everybody's wings are based off of real creatures. you can find the references for those lil creatures in the end notes if you want to look at them beforehand, but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what they look like even without pictures (and i'd recommend reading before looking bc of some Spicy Details) :D
> 
> edit: now with reALLY GREAT ART LINKED IN THE END NOTES TOO !! would highkey recommend reading before lookin at those because of some tiny spoilers u.u
> 
> **warnings: canon-typical violence and injuries, war, referenced child abuse + neglect, minor character death**

sokka can’t remember his mother’s wings. he looks at his own wings, and at gran gran’s wings, and at the wings of the tribesmen all around them, and he imagines that hers must have been similar—sleek, sturdy, softly-colored to blend in with the snow and sea. and he knows, he _knows,_ that her wings were warm and wide and kind. she would wrap them around him when he was cold to keep him safe and shielded from the world. when he was very little, his favorite place to be was tucked up against her in their nest. he’d preen her feathers as best he could with his small, clumsy fingers, and she’d help pluck the sheaths off of the itchy pinfeathers finally starting to replace the chickdown on sokka’s own wings.

then he’d gotten older, gotten tougher, and he’d spent less and less time in their nest. dad took him out to the sea and taught him to sit in the canoes, taught him to haul in nets full of writhing silver fish, taught him how to dive and swim and splash in the icy waters of their homeland. mom rarely joined them—she’d been too busy taking care of sokka’s new baby sister, katara, who was gross and noisy and not very much fun at all. 

once katara’s own feathers had grown in, mom brought her to the sea to learn to swim, too. sokka had sat on dad’s shoulders while mom and katara splashed in the shallows; katara seemed absolutely delighted with the water. it was one of the few things sokka could agree with her on. 

“hey, kiddo,” dad said, reaching up to hook his hands under sokka’s armpits and haul him up and around, so sokka dangled in the air in front him. “wanna teach your little sister how to dive?”

sokka nodded adamantly, already grinning, and dad threw him up into the air. even though sokka was still little-winged and flightless, he’d flapped frantically and squealed in delight before he hit the water. it wasn’t his best dive at all, and he got a noseful of salty water for his efforts, but it was worth it to see the pride in mom’s eyes when he’d surfaced, giggling, water streaming off of his face and feathers. 

“oh, that was wonderful, sokka!” she’d exclaimed, and he splashed his way over to her so she could pepper his face with kisses. “you’re getting so good at that.”

sokka beamed, wrapping his arms around her neck. she hauled him up from the water, letting him latch onto her, and hugged her wings around him. “again,” sokka demanded earnestly, already squirming in her grip because he was too _old_ to be held, too _tough_. “mom, again!”

so mom had tossed him up into the air—tossed him towards dad, so he wouldn’t be diving in the shallows—and sokka had twisted and clamped his wings tightly against his back, bringing his hands forward to split the water as he entered it. _that_ had been a good dive. even katara looked impressed when he surfaced, staring at him with wide, round blue eyes. mom applauded him, and dad scooped him up out of the water before the waves could tug him too far away.

“awesome job, sokka,” dad said, ruffling his hair with one big, rough hand. then he’d glanced over to mom, settling sokka on one hip. “want to bring katara out here, kya?”

mom scooped katara up, carrying her deeper into the water. katara cooed in delight, splashing with all six limbs as mom dipped her into the waves. sokka eyed her jealously as his parents’ attention turned to her, and he clambered up dad’s back to perch on his shoulders again. he tugged his dad’s wolftail gently, saying, “dad, up!”

“just a second, sokka,” dad said, reaching for katara. he hoisted her out of the water and blew a raspberry against her belly, which had her squealing and mom watching them all with a warm smile on her face. 

sokka frowned. “daaaad. i want up!”

“give me just a minute, bud. have some patience.”

needless to say, sokka was not a fan of this whole _younger sibling_ thing. it got even worse about two seconds later, when katara moved her hands down in a particularly sharp gesture and the waves parted for her. mom and dad had frozen, their eyes going wide and their feathers bristling—even sokka, wrapped up in his own irritation, could sense their alarm. he straightened, tangling his fingers into dad’s hair and clamping his wings more tightly against his back. 

for a few days after that, things had been tense. dad was gone more often than not, meeting with the other adults in the tribe. mom told him it was just dad doing chief things like usual, but sokka wasn’t convinced, not with the way the others in the tribe had suddenly started sneaking glances at katara when they thought mom wasn’t looking. mom sat him down and explained that katara was a waterbender, a rarity in the southern tribes, but sokka still didn’t understand why that would make everyone look so nervous. waterbenders were a good thing, surely…?

sokka tried waterbending himself, when he thought nobody was watching, but it rapidly became clear that he didn’t have katara’s abilities. that did nothing to help his jealousy. it didn’t help, either, that katara seemed so good at _everything_ she did as they both grew older. she could cook and clean and sew, she could run fast and climb faster and swim the fastest, she could talk gently to children and listen to gran gran’s stories for hours without getting bored. she was better than sokka in every way, and it made him _boil_ with resentment. 

then mom had died, and dad had left, and they’d cleaved to each other because no one else could even come close to understanding their pain. sokka’s resentment didn’t disappear, but it rapidly became unimportant, because katara was his _sister._ she was his family, she was a piece of the mother he was never getting back, and he loved her with his whole heart. besides, she was his baby sister, so he had to protect her even more than he had to protect everyone else. dad had left him to defend the village, to defend their family, and sokka refused to let him down. he was a soldier now, just like everyone else, and it was time to act like it.

sokka doesn’t know when he forgot what his mother’s wings looked like. maybe it was somewhere between training the tribe’s toddlers to fight and crying himself to sleep because the whole task felt so overwhelming and _hopeless_ and it was hard to bear that much responsibility on such small shoulders; maybe it was between fishing desperately in the winters to feed the tribe and listening to katara pester him about eating and brushing his teeth and combing his hair; maybe it was in the small, dark corners of his mind where he wondered if dad was ever coming back alive—and dreaded what the state of the world would be if he did. he knows that forgetting didn’t happen all at once, that it was slow and quiet and insidious. he knows maybe _forgetting_ isn’t the right term, knows maybe _being replaced_ would be more appropriate because when he tries to remember mom’s face all he sees is katara’s, and when he thinks of her wings—

when sokka thinks of his mother’s wings, he sees sleek brown feathers laced through with dull silver. he sees soft white undersides and chalky down. he sees juvenile plumage so very like his own, quiet and unassuming, on two long, sharply angled wings. he sees katara’s wings when he tries to think of his mother’s, and it stings like betrayal.

* * *

sokka hasn’t seen wings like aang’s in—well, in ever! the only people with wings that bright are aristocratic earthbenders, and earthbenders certainly don’t have wings that can beat, like, a million times a second. of course, aang’s wings are one of the many, many surprising things about him. after a certain point, discovering things about aang just makes sokka feel like flinging his hands in the air and saying, “yeah, sure, why not?”

but he can’t do that, because he’s in charge of protecting the tribe now, and that means _not_ accepting the eccentricities of the weird, airbending monk your little sister finds floating in an ice cube. he’s not going to deny that he feels guilty, sending aang away. of course he does! he’s not completely heartless, but he knows that it’s for the greater good, for the _greatest_ good: keeping his people safe.

ultimately, he fails even that. he recognizes his failure as soon as black ash begins to waft from the sky, littering his shoulders and the tops of his wings. the world stinks of smoke and soot. the arrival of a fire nation warship is alarming in and of itself—what’s even more alarming is who’s on that ship. sokka doesn’t recognize him, not at first. he looks like an ordinary firebender (albeit one with a pretty impressive scar): dark armor, severe hair, and one bad attitude. his wings fold tightly against his back, armored with overlapping steel plates. all sokka can see of them is that they’re dark (darker, maybe, than normal firebender wings, but in his panic he pushes that off as a trick of the light) and membranous, with one deadly hooked claw at the top arch of each one.

sokka does the only logical thing: he attacks. 

needless to say, the attack doesn’t last very long. a few seconds later, he crashes face-first into a pile of snow with an inelegant squawk; it would feel like diving, if he hadn’t been so forcefully punted into place. but he doesn’t let that stop him—he’ll _never_ give up trying to protect his people, not _ever._ he clambers back out of the snow in time to see the lead firebender lash out, sweeping a wave of glistening flame over the tribe’s heads. 

sokka shouts in anger, flaring his wings and charging forward with his boomerang held aloft. the firebender crouches low as sokka lunges, and sokka yelps and topples right over him. he narrowly dodges the streamer of flame the firebender sends rushing towards him, and then they’re really fighting. it isn’t much of a fight (as much as it pains sokka to admit that), and it’s aang who saves him, in the end. aang topples the firebender off of his feet with an otter penguin, and as he does, sokka gets a glimpse of something that sinks fear deep into his chest:

the firebender spreads his wings as he trips backwards, trying desperately to keep his balance, and sokka sees _gold._ the undersides of the firebender’s wings are unarmored, and the bulk of their membranes are pitch black. they’re thin enough for sokka to see the bones and joints running through them (there should only be five, even sokka knows that, not three or four and there definitely shouldn’t be _six,_ shouldn’t ever be six unless—oh _spirits help them)._ a streak of bright, vivid gold runs along each bone in the firebender’s wings. he’s striped with royalty, and sokka feels sick with fear.

that fear locks him in place, holds him captive, even as the firebender takes aang. it only releases him once the ship has drawn away from their homeland, vanishing into the distance and taking its plumes of smoke and ash (taking _aang)_ with it. he stands up, numb, his shoulders and wings drooping. his primaries drag grooves into the snow as he turns to face katara.

“we have to go after him,” she says, just like he knew she would. he wilts further, swallows hard around the lump of terror in his throat. “he saved us, sokka, we can’t just abandon him!”

“...i know.”

katara straightens up, surprise flickering across her face—it’s chased closely by suspicion. “you do?”

“but it’s going to be dangerous.” he takes a deep breath, pulling his wings up and tucking them neatly into place before straightening his shoulders. at his sides, his hands curl into fists. “not just for us, but for everyone we leave behind.”

katara approaches him, setting a hand on his shoulder. she extends one wing, curling it around his back. her feathers are ruffled with fear, but there’s a stubborn set to her jaw; sokka recognizes it. it’s the same expression their father wore when he left. “it’s not going to be easy,” she agrees quietly. “but if aang—if he really is the avatar, then saving him could be saving our tribe, too. you aren’t letting them down by going after him. you’re _helping_ them.”

sokka looks away, struggling to keep his wings and shoulders from slumping again. 

“you aren’t letting dad down, either,” katara says fiercely, knocking his back gently with her wing. “we have to do this. he’s our friend.”

“he could be the key to defeating the fire nation,” sokka admits, folding his arms across his chest. he takes another slow, deep breath. “dad would love to have him on our side.”

“see? it’s a win-win situation.”

_“if_ we win. did you see that guy’s wings?” sokka shudders. “that pattern? he’s gotta be a royal firebender.”

katara’s mouth sets grimly. “i know. i saw.”

“and you really think we can beat him?”

“i think we have to try.”

so they leave their village together, and they try, and they succeed—which sokka _absolutely_ did not see coming. his life gets consequentially more complicated and more exciting in equal measure. he feels better on appa’s back than he ever did back at the tribe. out here, he only has to protect two people (who are, he supposes, quite capable of protecting themselves). he worries about the tribe, of course, but there’s something to be said for out of sight, out of mind. his attentions refocus on helping aang find his bending masters, and on scouting out the best food for them to sample along the way. it’s not the life he ever thought he would have, after dad left, but—

but it’s his life, now, not mom’s or dad’s or the tribe’s, and he’s starting to really like it.

* * *

aang is good at flying—like, _really unfairly_ good at flying. sokka blames it on the airbending (which is totally cheating!) and tries not to feel too outclassed when they glide together alongside appa. aang flies like an acrobat, darting forwards and backwards and circling in loop-de-loops whenever he gets bored of going in a straight line. he can even hover in place, beating his wings rapidly back and forth, although he says it exhausts him to do so for long. 

sokka, meanwhile, is more... _studious_ about his flight patterns. he flaps until he finds a thermal, and then he settles in and glides until the wind changes. when that happens, he finds another thermal and repeats the whole process. 

“but that’s so boring!” aang whines, darting over sokka’s head. his shadow flickers lithely over sokka’s wings as he moves, weaving his way in and out of the clouds. 

“it’s efficient,” sokka says stiffly. he beats his wings, once, and then lets the wind do his work for him. he doesn’t need to be flashy, or showy, or—or entertaining. he just needs be mobile. besides, gliding saves his energy for other, more important things. so would riding appa, he supposes, but he starts to get jittery after a few hours in the saddle, and it’s nice to stretch his wings and feel the breeze for a little while. 

aang folds his wings briefly, dipping to sokka’s level before snapping them out again. they soar together, wingtip to wingtip, for a few moments. “you know,” aang whispers surreptitiously (as much as one can whisper when the wind snatches away their words, anyway), “it’s okay to have fun. i promise i won’t tell anybody.”

“i am having fun!” sokka protests. “this is fun!”

aang arches an eyebrow at him.

“well, it _is!”_

a decidedly crafty look enters aang’s eyes, and sokka’s wingbeats falter for a moment too long; he loses his glide. he yelps, flapping earnestly and banking as he searches for another thermal—a thermal far, far away from sneaky airbenders and their dastardly ideas. 

“i know what’s even more fun,” aang shouts over to him. 

does sokka even _want_ to know? he takes a deep breath. “yeah? and what’s that?”

“training!”

sokka squints. he supposes that _is_ fun, if only because he’s already so good at it. a warrior should always keep his skills sharp, after all, and—

“surprise attack!” 

aang dives down a few feet ahead of him, then turns and hovers in place. sokka shrieks and slams into him; aang latches on like a clingy koalachick, wrapping his arms and legs around sokka before folding his wings tightly. the sudden weight drags sokka down, and he quickly pulls in his own wings before the wind can yank them too far back. the two of them tumble down through the sky. sokka’s stomach jumps into his throat, his eyes stream with the force of the wind, and he screams (a very _manly_ scream!) as they fall.

aang’s arms loosen momentarily, and sokka takes that invitation for what it is. he pulls his legs towards his chest, plants his feet firmly against aang’s stomach, and kicks. aang lurches backwards, and the wind does the rest of the work _just_ the way sokka likes it to. it tears the two of them apart, and sokka gingerly begins to extend his wings; he doesn’t want to bring himself to a sudden stop, lest he tear the muscles in his back and shoulders, so he aims for a controlled dive instead. his wings slow the rate of his tumble through the air, and soon enough he’s able to pull out of his dive with several hard flaps.

then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees aang crash past him. aang’s wings are still clamped tight, and he grins widely at sokka as he passes, his eyes sparkling. oh, spirits’ sake!

sokka pulls his wings in and dives again. he was made for diving, and going after aang feels just like going after the bright-scaled fish in the southern seas. beneath them, he can make out the wide blue ribbon of a river, and he knows _exactly_ how he’s going to get his revenge on one dastardly little airbender. aang twists around several hundred feet above the river, finally beginning to slow his own dive—he wasn’t made for crashing into water, not like sokka is. this time he does not, however, have a choice in the matter.

aang manages to pull out of his dive, soaring some twenty feet above the glistening water. sokka rapidly eats up the distance between them. aang hears him coming and rolls over midair, folding his arms behind his head and grinning sheepishly at him. that sheepish grin disappears almost immediately when he sees that sokka’s still diving, and he flails to roll back over and get his wings working again. he isn’t quick enough. sokka slows his dive right before he strikes aang, and the two of them plummet into the river.

sokka makes sure to keep the fingers of one hand wrapped snugly in aang’s shirt once they’re underwater, and he follows their air bubbles back to the surface. he hauls aang along with him, and aang—after a moment of disorientated flailing—begins to paddle after him. they both burst through the surface gasping for air and rubbing water out of their eyes. the force of their splash was enough to knock sokka’s wolftail out of its tie, and his hair streaks across his face. he pushes it back and finally gets a good look at aang’s face.

aang looks absolutely giddy.

“sokka, that was so cool! where’d you learn to dive like that?”

“it’s just an old water tribe trick,” sokka says, puffing himself up as best he can in the water. “everyone knows how to do it.”

“can you teach me?”

“i dunno.” sokka hesitates, glancing at aang’s wings. they look distinctly sodden—and they’re small, but they must be heavy with all of the water soaked into his feathers. “you’re not exactly waterproof.”

“i can swim just fine!” aang splashes his arms and wings in the water to prove it, and sokka coughs and shields his face with his hands. 

“alright, alright alright already! i’ll teach you.” sokka doesn’t think aang will ever be quite as good a diver as someone with wings born and bred for it, but there’s no harm in trying. besides, it’s kind of nice to be the one aang wants as a teacher from time to time. “but first we have to get out of the water. i doubt you know how to do a take-off from here, huh?”

aang wilts. “uuuh, no.”

sokka paddles for the shore, slipping underwater so he can use his wings to help propel him forward. he cuts easily through the waves, clambering up onto the bank and shaking himself off. his clothes are soaked through, but the water slides easily from his skin and feathers. aang scrambles out of the river after him, flopping back onto the sand to gasp for breath.

“that,” he says, “is so neat.”

“what is?” sokka asks.

“your feathers. they don’t get wet.”

sokka could get _used_ to this praise. he fluffs his feathers out, reaching back to preen while aang catches his breath. “yeah, they are pretty cool.” he pauses, flicking his eyes over aang’s wings. the covert feathers glimmer iridescently in the sunshine, crystals of blue and green light fracturing across sokka’s vision. in contrast, the primaries and secondaries are a soft charcoal, made significantly darker by the water they carry. “yours are cool, too. did all airbenders have wings like that?”

“well, not _just_ like this,” aang says, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chest before crossing his arms over them. “i mean, some of them were really similar. there were different colors, though. gyatso had purple wings.”

“but everybody was that colorful?”

“yeah.” aang grins. “flocking was like a rainbow! it was always really pretty. i wish you could have seen it.”

aang’s tone dips near the end, grief flickering through his solemn gray eyes. sokka isn’t any good at comfort, never has the right words to smooth a situation over and make it bearable, so instead he sits down next to aang and rests a wing against his back. aang leans into his side, looking wistfully across the river. after a moment, sokka elbows him.

“hey,” he says. “come on. i’ll teach you how to dive if you can get off of the ground with those soggy wings.”

katara comes looking for them a few minutes later, landing appa beside the river and storming off of him with her eyes blazing. “where _were_ you?” she demands as they flit above the river. aang stops to hover, looking guiltily at her, and sokka scowls. “i was worried sick!”

...alright, sokka feels a little guilty, too. he knows he’d freak out if he woke up from a nap to find himself in appa’s saddle with nobody but momo for company. he lands in front of her, scuffing the ground with his toes—he’d taken his boots and shirt off to let them dry on the bank while they played in the water. “sorry,” he says, and katara’s shoulders begin to relax, her feathers smoothing down. “we, uh, got distracted.”

“sokka’s teaching me how to dive,” aang exclaims. “it’s super cool! you should come hang out with us, and we can make camp here for the night.”

katara glances up at the horizon, where the sun is already beginning to set. “i guess it is getting late,” she admits. 

aang takes that for an agreement and immediately begins flitting to and fro again, skimming across the surface of the water. “woo-hoo! come on in, the water’s great!”

sokka leaps back into the air, flying in a short spiral before dipping down to drag the tip of one wing through the water. ripples spread in every direction, and he keeps a close eye out for the shadowy dart of any fish. if he can catch something particularly yummy, he’s sure katara will forgive them. he flaps his wings to lift himself further away from the water so he won’t disturb any potential dinner, and behind him, he hears the familiar thump of katara’s wings as she takes to the air.

between the two of them (and aang, although how much aang helps and how much he hinders is debatable), they catch a sizable dinner. sokka fries the meat while aang and katara glide in high, arcing circles above the camp and appa snoozes in the soft green grass. after dinner, sokka dons a set of dry clothes and then goes to sit behind katara. she spreads her wings without prompting, and he gently begins to preen her feathers out—another quiet apology for abandoning her without warning.

“i’m glad you two had fun,” she says after a moment, glancing over her shoulder. her eyes are warm and fond. “aang’s been good for you. you need to relax.”

“i am perfectly relaxed most of the time,” sokka huffs, running his fingers along her feathers to straighten them out. they’re as sleek as his are, and they shed the water just as easily—she isn’t the slightest bit damp, even after splashing with aang in the water. “but somebody has to take things seriously.”

“not _all_ the time.”

he harrumphs at her, not dignifying that with a response (because he can’t think up a good one, anyway). once her feathers are nice and orderly again, he sits back on his haunches and stretches out his own wings in invitation. she begins to preen through his feathers, and aang slips over from appa’s side to watch. 

“can i help?” he asks.

“oh, everybody wants a piece of this,” sokka says, grinning. aang’s never preened him before, but how can sokka have a problem with it? they’re flock now, for better or for worse. “get in here.”

aang settles down next to katara, and their fingers work deftly through his feathers, tucking and turning and rearranging. he pulls his knees up and rests his chin on them, letting his eyes drift shut. his jaw cracks around a yawn, but he refuses to let himself drift off quite yet. they still have one set of wings to preen, after all. 

once sokka’s done, he gestures for aang to turn around. aang does, and katara and sokka both begin to gently groom his feathers; they’re still damp from his swimming, and they stick together more than sokka would like, so it takes quite a bit longer. the results, he thinks, are well worth it. aang is half-asleep by the time they finish, his eyes lidded and his shoulders low. they all spread out their sleeping mats and then curl up near each other in the shelter of appa’s side. aang is asleep within seconds. sokka follows, never far behind.

* * *

sokka doesn’t like to make a habit of getting beaten up by girls, but hey, for suki, he’ll make an exception—because she’s _incredible._ he learns more about fighting from her in one day than he has in the last fifteen years. she and her warriors teach him armed combat, unarmed combat, aerial combat, ambushing, support, defense, and he drinks it all in and yearns for more. he thinks he could have stayed on kyoshi island for years and never learned enough; unfortunately, their little vacation is cut short by one particularly stubborn royal firebender.

he and suki fight together against the firebenders that storm the island, matched step for step and wingbeat for wingbeat. suki’s wings are wide and sturdy, covered with tawny feathers and barred with black. they’re wings made for endurance, and she fights just as viciously in the air as she does on land. sokka can barely keep up. he’s flagging, near the end of their battle—

and then he sees that _damned firebender_ attack suki. his rough rhino slashes her out of the air with its tail, and she slams into the ground with a cry of pain. the firebender— _zuko,_ aang had called him zuko—immediately turns and aims a blast of fire at her. sokka springs, dispelling the fire with a waft of air from the fan the kyoshi warriors had given him. he spreads his wings, bares his teeth, gets ready to _fight—_

and then another warrior knocks zuko from his rhino, and sokka suddenly has the advantage. he and suki rush forward, surrounding zuko. up close, he can see the undersides of zuko’s wings even better: horrible, leathery things laced through with pulsing blood vessels and thick scars and those horrible warning streaks of his, gaudy gold on pitch black. they clatter noisily when he moves them, their armor plates grating against each other as he pins them to his back again—then he lunges. 

sokka is soundly beaten. again. he really tries not to let it get to him.

they travel to omashu, next, and meet king bumi. the king’s personality is absolutely eccentric, but his wings are, like, _uncommonly_ common for an aristocrat. they’re big and powerful, like most earthbenders’ wings, with drab brown feathers. aang squints at them when he sees them, like he’s trying to decide something. sokka doesn’t quite understand _what_ until the next day, when bumi puts aang through his trials before formally introducing himself—and, you know, also trapping sokka in a hefty case of rock candy. it wouldn’t have been the worst way to go, all things considered. 

jet has the feathers of a raven, bold and black. sokka really can’t blame katara for being enthralled with the guy—those are some pretty wings, and his face isn’t _terrible,_ and his ideas really did sound good before they got all murder-y and—and—

and sokka is crushed for katara, when she discovers his cruelty. (it really had been too good to be to true.) he holds her close that night, wraps his wings around her like their mother used to do and lets her hug him tight, even though he doesn’t like being held, even though he’s supposed to be a soldier and he’s too old and too tough for it, now.

then he meets yue—beautiful yue, with her smooth brown skin and piercing eyes and sleek white wings—and he forgets all about being tough. he follows after her like a love-struck puppy, and he’s ecstatic to hear she returns his feelings. he’s much less ecstatic to hear she’s engaged. he’s much, much, much, _much_ less ecstatic when she turns into the moon. needless to say, it’s rough. sokka is of the opinion that perhaps he and katara are simply destined to love people who will inevitably hurt them. 

he wonders if it’s even worth it. (but it is _so hard_ to stop loving.) 

* * *

meeting azula is—well, it’s petrifying. sure, sokka had almost grown _used_ to the fact that they were being hunted by a royal firebender, but _two_ royal firebenders? er, three, if you count the weird old man (sokka doesn’t). it’s too many royal firebenders, is the point! one was _more_ than enough for him. 

azula is, somehow, even worse than zuko. they look similar, sure, with the same creepy golden eyes, dark hair, and featherless, yellow-striped wings—but their personalities couldn’t be more different. where zuko is impulsive and reckless and brash, azula is cunning and manipulative and sneaky. her fire is the weirdest color sokka’s ever seen, bright blue and hot enough to feel from a hundred feet back. her pursuit of them is infinitely more terrifying than zuko’s. fortunately, more terrifying does not correlate to more successful.

they escape her in omashu, and they find toph.

toph looks more like an aristocratic earthbender than bumi ever did—her wings are small and covered with pure white feathers rarely seen in the earth kingdom. even dirt-streaked and ruffled by the battles of earth rumble iv, she’s easily recognizable as someone of noble blood. when they find her the next day, she’s scrubbed spotless. her wings are immaculately preened and draped with thin golden chains and bright green jewels. she holds them like she doesn't quite know what to do with them, and sokka can’t help but pity her, even if she _is_ getting to live a cushy life as a royal and she never lost her mother to the war, never got left behind by her father, was never saddled with the responsibility of defending her tribe with nothing more than a handful of toddlers, never—

he swallows hard. she didn’t suffer the way he did, that’s true, but she’s suffered in her own way. he doesn’t know what’s worse: being smothered by your parents or not having any. 

but the next day, he sees toph fan her wings out to stretch them, sees the savage angle at which her primary feathers have been clipped, and he knows. 

“your wings,” he says numbly, and realizes two seconds later he _shouldn’t have,_ but then he’s never been the smartest or the kindest or the most thoughtful. maybe he can be forgiven for it.

toph tilts her head in his direction, her opaque eyes narrowing subtly. “what about ‘em, ponytail?”

“they’re…” his jaw clenches. “did your parents do that?”

“yeah.” toph leans back against appa’s saddle, stretching her dusty feet out in front of her. she keeps her wings spread, letting the breeze ruffle her feathers. katara glances over at them, and when she sees toph’s wings, her jaw tightens, too. “they thought it would be too dangerous for me to fly—like i’d even _want_ to.”

“but they shouldn’t have taken the choice from you,” katara says, her voice stiff.

“no,” toph agrees. “they shouldn’t have.”

in front of them, perched on top of appa’s head, aang hunches his shoulders. he hasn’t looked back, but sokka knows he’s listening. “how can people do that?” aang demands. “it’s not fair. and—and to their own _kids.”_

“they were trying to look out for me,” toph says, shrugging and resting her hands in her lap. “i mean, don’t get me wrong, their ideas on how to look after me suck, but they weren’t doing it to be cruel.”

“maybe they didn’t mean for it to be, but it _was_ cruel,” katara insists.

“you think i don’t know that?” toph demands, her feathers bristling. she moves to stand up, then sways and sits back down, gripping appa’s saddle tightly. “you think i liked having my feathers sheared all the time? you think i liked being grounded like some—some stupid _pet?_ no way! it was awful, and yeah, they shouldn’t have done it. i know that. i just...i don’t hate them for it. i don’t want to. they’re my parents.”

katara bows her head.

“hey,” sokka says, and they both glance towards him. “toph, if you want, i’ll teach you how to fly after your next molt.”

toph’s eyes widen. then she narrows them again and snorts sardonically. “what, seriously? you think the blind girl’s going to be able to fly without crashing into something? i can’t see if i’m not touching the ground.”

“come on, as high up as we are, you’d have to _try_ to crash into anything other than a cloud,” sokka says. “i wouldn’t let you go anywhere dangerous. you don’t have to do it all the time or anything, but—y’know, if you want to try, let me know.”

toph hesitates, then dips her chin in a brief, jerky nod. “yeah. i’ll let you know.”

sokka beams, stretching himself out in the middle of the saddle and folding his arms behind his head. he just barely hears the muttered _thanks_ toph sends in his direction. his smile gets even bigger. 

* * *

sokka freezes at the end of the tent, his breath catching in his throat as he sees his—as he sees his _father_ for the first time in years. he swallows thickly. dad looks thoughtfully at a map outspread on the ground; bato kneels next to him, easily recognizable by his tapering white wings (each with a prominent black tip, as though they’ve been dipped in firebender soot) and the savage burn scar that curls around his shoulder, his arm, his side. 

that scar reminds sokka of...someone else.

bato glances over as sokka steps into the tent, and a smile lights his face. he nudges dad, gesturing towards sokka—when dad’s eyes meet his, sokka’s heart squeezes painfully. 

“sokka,” dad says warmly, and sokka hasn’t heard that voice in _so long—_ was never really sure if he’d ever even get to hear it another time. suddenly, he feels like he’s three all over again, riding around on his father’s broad shoulders (shoulders that could carry the whole world) while mom watched and smiled and held katara close. there aren’t words to describe the emotions lodged in sokka’s throat, but he has to say _something_ before the silence stretches too long and the only thing he can think of is:

“hi, dad.”

dad rises, crossing the tent and opening his arms. sokka takes the last few steps to meet him, throwing himself against his dad’s chest. dad’s arms and wings close around him, enfolding him in warm darkness. his father smells like smoke, like sea and salt, like _home._ sokka turns his face into dad’s shoulder, hugging him tightly and letting himself—just for a moment, just for a _second—_ feel like someone small and safe and protected.

“oh, my son.” dad leans back, after a moment, looking sokka over. “spirits, look at you! when’d you get so big?”

sokka laughs, and if the sound is just a little wobbly, dad kindly doesn’t mention it. “i’m sixteen now,” he says, just in case dad doesn’t know anymore, just in case he forgot while he was away because the only person he thought of when he thought of _sokka_ was the little fourteen-year-old he left crying on the seashore two years ago. 

“i know.” dad leans their foreheads together, squeezing sokka’s shoulders. “i never forgot your birthday.”

sokka’s eyes sting, but he can’t quite stop smiling. dad leads him further into the tent, re-introducing him to the tribesmen all around. bato thumps him heartily on the shoulder, and sokka laughs and hugs him, too. he settles in on dad’s left side, and together, they begin to plot the downfall of a nation. dad keeps one heavy black and gray wing behind sokka the whole time, tucked protectively against his back, and sokka can’t find it in himself to complain—not here, not now, not like he usually would because he’s always the big brother, the soldier, the strategist. but here? here, he’s still all of that, oh, yes, but—

well, but here, he’s also hakoda’s son.

that bubble of safety doesn’t last as long as he would like it to. the fire nation comes to tear him apart from his father (again and again _and again),_ and his father bids him to stand and fight with the men of their tribe. sokka holds his wings and shoulders high and proud—he always knew his father believed in him (why else would he have left sokka to defend their tribe?) but it’s good to have that reaffirmed. 

before he has a chance to prove himself a soldier, however, aang comes for him—katara’s in trouble, and sokka knows, more than he knows anything else, that his duty is to protect her. he knows dad understands that sokka isn’t retreating out of cowardice, he _knows that,_ but it still stings to watch the tribesmen get smaller and smaller as appa flies away from the brewing battle. he feels very much like a coward. but if being a coward is what it takes to keep his family alive, then he’ll be the biggest coward in the world. 

“don’t worry, you’ll see him again,” aang says, and sokka has to believe that. 

* * *

azula’s lightning tears through aang’s back and shoulders, leaving his skin blotched and red and warped; his wings are no better off. even after katara does what she can to heal him, the bases are featherless and blistered. the soft, downy gray-black feathers between his shoulder blades and down the line of his spine are ruined and gone. he shivers, wracked with fever, for days on end. katara sits with him more often than not, his head cradled in her lap while she works to heal his gruesome wounds. sokka sits by her whenever he can, his feathers bristling and his wings mantling. no one gets to be near them right now— _no one._

(save, of course, toph and appa, who are almost as on-guard as he is.)

together, they escape, hiding out on one of the fire nation’s own cruisers. aang heals slowly, and as the days turn into weeks sokka begins to wonder if he’s ever going to wake up. his hair grows in, a soft fuzz of dark strands. his feathers, too, begin to push back through the naked skin near the bases of his wings and along his back. sokka preens them into order on the nights he keeps watch, murmuring quietly to aang about the happenings aboard the ship. 

“sokka?”

sokka mantles his wings, arching them protectively over aang’s prone body as he looks warily towards the door. dad stands in front of him—he holds his hands up peacefully. embarrassed, sokka fluffs his feathers out before smoothing them down and tucking his wings back into place at his sides. “sorry,” he mumbles.

“it’s alright. i understand,” dad says. he takes a seat in one of the chairs beside the bed, looking quietly at aang. “i just came to tell you that breakfast is ready. i can watch him while you eat.”

“oh—alright. thanks.” sokka hesitates, then forces himself off of the bed and towards the door. “want me to bring you something back?”

“no, i already ate. but sokka? i think katara’s molting. maybe you could help her preen.”

sokka glances back at his father, confusion furrowing his brow. why doesn’t dad just help her himself? mom had usually been the one to preen their wings on a day-to-day basis, but dad’s done it before, too—he knows how. then he remembers the way katara looks at dad now, her eyes glittering with frustration, and he understands. he understands far, far more than he’d like to. he nods to dad, then makes his way to the ship’s galley.

it’s the warm season, now—or at least, it would be, were they still at the south pole. every one of the tribesmen’s wings seems to have gotten the memo; feathers (grays and whites, blacks and browns: solemn water tribe colors) litter the ship deck as sokka picks his way across it. he can feel the itch of a molt beginning in his own wings, although he has yet to drop any of his feathers. the same cannot be said for katara. he finds her sitting with toph and bato, each with a bowl of cold squid soup. he fetches his own bowl and goes to join them.

“how’s aang?” katara asks, concern clear in her voice. 

“he’s alright. no change.” sokka chases a chunk of squid tentacle around his bowl with his spoon. katara sighs and shifts next to him, and a small brown feather flutters to the floor. she looks despondently at it. “his wounds look better. you’ve done a good job.”

“yeah.” toph knocks her knee gently against katara’s. “he’s gonna owe you big time when he wakes up.”

“your mother,” bato says, “would be very proud, if she could see what you’ve accomplished.”

that, more than anything else, seems to lift katara’s spirits. she finishes off her soup, then rises; sokka stops her, tugging at the edge of her tunic. “here, sis,” he says. “let me fix your wings.”

katara hesitates—no doubt, she wants to go and see aang—but ultimately settles back down in front of sokka. he tips the rest of his own soup into his mouth, then sets his bowl aside and reaches for her wings. he runs his fingers deftly through them, plucking out loose feathers and setting them in a pile. the feathers coming in look healthy and strong, although they’re still the dull browns and silvers of a juvenile’s plumage, not an adult’s. 

sokka wonders if he’ll get his adult feathers, this season. he’s more than earned them.

unfortunately, it’s not to be—he starts his molt later that week, and the feathers that grow in are no different than the feathers that fall out. toph helps him preen, her fingers deftly picking out the feathers that are ready to drop and smoothing out the barbs of the new ones. katara soothes his itchy skin with her bending, and he sighs in relief and quits rubbing his wings against the heavy metal door frames of the ship quite so often. 

“look at those new feathers,” dad says, a proud gleam in his eyes when he looks at sokka. “sleek as a seal.”

sokka puffs his feathers out, delighted. “why, thank you. although i have to say, i’m a little disappointed they’re still brown.”

dad chuckles, clapping him on the shoulder. “don’t rush your youth away. you’ll grow into your plumage when you’re ready—and if you’re anything like your mother, it’s going to be beautiful.”

he could ask, sokka realizes. he could ask dad what mom’s wings looked like, and maybe that’s not remembering but it’s _knowing_ and is that really so different? but—but in order to ask, he’d have to admit that he’d forgotten in the first place. he’d have to admit to dad that he can’t even picture his own mother’s wings, his own mother’s _face,_ and that—

tui and la, that would crush him. sokka can’t do it.

so he smiles, instead, and says, “i hope so.”

* * *

staying undercover in the fire nation is complicated, to say the least. maybe they could pass as ordinary fire nation citizens if there were some way to hide their feathers. maybe they could even pass if only one of them had draconic wings, waving the others off as half-breeds or servants. as it is, all four of them are obviously feathered and obviously not fire nation. as a result, they spend most of their time tucked away in caves and forest clearings. 

only toph’s wings are small enough, with their atrophied muscles and clipped feathers, to be hidden under a cloak—a fact she takes _great_ advantage of when it comes to winning money and supplying them with food. katara complains, naturally, but there’s little she can do about it, and when she _tries,_ she’s thrown into a ramshackle prison. of course, at this point they’ve gotten quite good at jailbreaks, thank you very much, and escaping doesn’t pose much of a problem. still. it’s a risk sokka would have preferred not to take—not that anyone ever takes his opinion seriously. hmph.

...then they suggest finding _him_ a master, and the risk is. well. it’s very tempting. maybe he shouldn’t blame katara and toph so much for their impulsiveness after all. still, he hesitates. it’s not safe. it’s selfish. it’s a waste of time. he wants very badly to feel as useful as the others, but he doesn’t need to feel useful to defeat the fire nation, so it’s really not necessary and he shouldn’t even be thinking about this because it’s childish and silly and—

and when he goes to meet master piandao, he keeps his wings pinned tightly to his back. toph bent several sheets of cheap metal into shape, and they’d covered the backs of his wings with plated armor, in the manner of all fire nation soldiers. it feels horribly uncomfortable, heavy and chafing, but when piandao takes him as student sokka thinks it’s completely worth it. 

piandao has fire nation wings—sokka’s never seen wings like that up close without, you know, fearing for his life. they’re enormous, and sure, they look like they’re made of paper, but they’re _powerful._ his wings aren’t as dark as the royals’, and in the sunlight, sokka realizes that they’re brown instead of black. he actually uses them when he fights, something sokka’s never seen a fire nation soldier do. sokka’s sorely tempted to use his own wings to even the playing field, but he dares not spread them, lest piandao see his feathers and know him for an enemy.

of course, he needn’t have bothered with the deception, since his stupid _name_ was what gave him away in the end. sokka. freaking _sokka._

* * *

seeing zuko after the day of black sun is alarming, to say the least. the last time sokka saw him was—well. he can’t get the stink of seared, burning flesh out of his nostrils when he looks at those golden eyes, and aang must feel the same, if the way his wings clamp tightly to his back whenever zuko appears is any indication. so sokka bares his teeth, standing defensively alongside his friends (alongside his _family)_ and bristling his feathers to make himself look as big and fierce as possible while he reaches for his boomerang. 

but zuko doesn’t attack them. 

instead, he talks. talks himself a hole, sure, but—well, there are worse things. besides, if anyone knows what talking himself in circles is like, it’s sokka. he almost feels bad for the guy. (almost. not quite. not enough to forgive him, and _certainly_ not enough to think he’s anything other than a cruel, stubborn firebender set on seeing the world burn.) sokka looks to aang when zuko does, shaking his head. aang, evidently, agrees with that assessment. 

“there’s no way we can trust you after everything you’ve done,” aang says. “we’ll never let you join us.”

the hurt in zuko’s eyes tugs at something deep in sokka’s chest, but the gold in them keeps him from feeling too badly about it. the second zuko takes a step towards his family, sokka moves in front of them, his wings beginning to mantle. “either you leave,” he says, his voice as hard and cold as the ice he grew up on, “or we attack.”

there’s no room for anything else, not with zuko. that’s all their dynamic has been (and ever will be) with him: fighting and fleeing.

at the very least, sokka’s glad their group is all on the same page. no firebender is trustworthy, and especially not _that_ firebender. toph isn’t quite as adamant about that fact as sokka would like—but he didn’t think she’d do something as _stupid_ as going to _visit_ him in the _middle of the night._ kids these days, seriously! sometimes sokka can really understand why dad abandoned them. 

okay, no. no, that’s—that’s cruel on all accounts, and he immediately feels bad for thinking it. he swallows his rush of _angerguiltfear_ and goes back to fretting about toph because _what the hell was she thinking._ of course zuko attacked her, of course! all firebenders know is how to maim and destroy. it’s in their nature. maybe he can’t blame toph for not knowing that as well as he and katara do; she’s been sheltered from the war (from everything) her whole life, but they’ve been through so much these past few months. why hasn’t she learned? 

she’s a good bender, sokka won’t deny that, but she’s cocky. one of these days it’s going to get her hurt—and a hurt more serious than a pair of burnt feet, too. he settles in to guard her while katara works on healing the raw, blistered red skin of her soles. he keeps his wings arced high, throwing dark shadows over his friends’ heads and glaring into the forest outside of the air temple. it’s too dangerous, he decides. zuko is too dangerous. leaving a wild, unpredictable firebender lurking out there is just asking for trouble. sokka’s done a lot of stupid things in his life, but this isn’t going to be one of them.

they’re going to capture him. sokka always feels better having a course of action, having a _plan,_ and he’s itching to get a move on. then combustion man happens, and his plan is shot (which is not, unfortunately, an unfamiliar feeling) and he has to scramble to reassess everything he knows because did zuko just—did he seriously just—

did the prince of the fire nation _rescue them?_

okay, to be fair, he did rescue them from the assassin he _sent after them in the first place,_ so sokka probably shouldn’t be that impressed. the only thing it’s proved to him is that maybe, just maybe, zuko doesn’t actively want to kill them or capture them anymore. it certainly doesn’t mean that he’s good, or trustworthy, or anything more than a dangerous criminal. but aang...well, aang wants him, and sokka doesn’t trust _zuko_ but he trusts aang, so when aang asks—

“hey, all i want is to defeat the firelord,” sokka says, spreading his hands. “if you think this is the way to do it, then i’m all for it.”

at least this way they can keep an eye on zuko, so he doesn’t hurt anyone else. taking him with them as a prisoner or a firebending master, what difference does it make? but if zuko thinks for _one second_ that sokka is going to trust him, he’s got another thing coming. sokka’s only duty for so, so long has been to protect the people he loves, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to fail when they’re so close to ending this war. 

zuko may be with them, but he isn’t one of them, and sokka isn’t going to forget that.

* * *

the first time sokka sees zuko’s wings without metal plating in the way is right before boiling rock. zuko unbuckles the plates and lets them slide to the ground, where they land with a heavy clatter. his wings are as gaudily-patterned on the back as they are on the front, smears of gold on velveteen black. he peels off his shirt, next, and as sokka watches he drags his fingers through a pot of thick black paint and begins to cover his stripes. 

“what about your bones?” sokka asks, and zuko shoots him an absolutely befuddled look. “you know? ‘cause there’s six of them?”

“oh. no one should notice as long as i keep them folded.” he pulls a wing around in front of himself to continue painting, wincing as he does. “i doubt there’s going to be a lot of flying in a fire nation prison, anyway.”

sokka sighs a put-upon sigh, then settles in behind zuko and reaches for the paint pot. “here. let me get the ones on the back before you pull something.”

zuko’s shoulders slump, and he gingerly spreads his wings. they look almost as well-used as toph’s do—which is to say, not nearly well-used enough. fire nation soldiers aren’t known for their aerial maneuvers, but sokka had at least thought they’d _fly_ from time to time. zuko’s wings are big, but their muscles are thin and underdeveloped, and at several spots along the wing’s arm (where the straps of zuko’s armor always rest, sokka presumes) the skin has been chafed into stiff callouses.

“dude,” he says, dabbing paint across one thick gold stripe. he can feel the delicate bone underneath. it is the creepiest thing in the world. “do you even fly?”

“sometimes,” zuko says, and doesn’t bother expanding on the subject. a real chatty one, him. 

as sokka paints zuko’s wings, he can’t help but catalog the scars he sees. several of them run along the leathery membrane of zuko’s wings, and they feel thick and ropy under his fingers. these don’t look like burn scars—they look like cut scars. sokka’s honestly surprised that they didn’t slit right through the membrane; the bottoms of zuko’s wings don’t look so lucky. his left wing is the worst. it has several ragged tears near the base of the membrane. they don’t seem large enough to prevent flying, but they’re hardly _small._ it looks like—

huh. it looks a little like a burnt sail. 

his right wing is better. it only harbors a few tears near the bottoms. nevertheless, sokka paints more carefully around the stripes there. the entire time, zuko sits stiff and unmoving and yeah, okay, sokka can see why this is probably weird for him. firebenders don’t preen, and even if they _did,_ sokka doubts zuko would be caught dead letting some _water tribe peasant_ help. jerk. 

“huh,” he says (maybe just a _touch_ pettily) as he smears a glob of paint near the top arch of zuko’s wing, taking care not to touch the sharp, hooked claw at the end. “i guess all that armor didn’t really help, huh?”

zuko’s wings stiffen (sokka hadn’t thought it possible, they were already so tense), and sokka instantly realizes he’s made a social blunder yet again. sometime it seems like that’s the only thing he’s truly proficient at doing. “i wasn’t wearing armor when i got those,” zuko says tersely, and wow, now sokka feels like the jerk. 

but he’s nothing if not persistent when it comes to sticking his foot in his mouth, so he rebounds by asking, “what happened?”

it, well. it actually isn’t much of a rebound. he focuses hard on zuko’s back, and on the smattering of tiny scales that run up and down his spine and between his shoulders. most of them are as pitch black as his wings, but a few gleaming gold ones scatter throughout in an aimless pattern. he dabs those with black paint, too. 

“my sister pushed me off of a roof before i knew how to fly,” zuko says, gesturing aimlessly to one of the thick scars on his left wing. sokka gulps—and he thought _katara_ was scary when she was angry. zuko gestures to a scar nearer to the top of his wing. “ship exploded.” he points to the tatters near the bottom of his left wing, next. “agni kai.”

“...agni kai?”

zuko shakes his head—a little movement, more for himself than sokka, sokka thinks—before he says, “it’s, uh. it’s a ceremonial fight between firebenders. for honor.”

sokka decides to push his luck. “what about the one on your face?”

“agni kai again.”

“man, you must get into a lot of ‘em.”

“no.” zuko’s wings pull in, folding themselves tightly against his back again. “only two.”

sokka frowns. he wants to ask more, but even he can tell that zuko’s starting to feel uncomfortable. and hey, sokka doesn’t like the guy, but he doesn’t want to go out of his way to make him miserable, either. that’s not cool. so, instead, he sits back on his haunches and sighs. “aw, man.”

“what?” zuko shoots an alarmed look over his shoulder, lowering his wing so he can see sokka.

“the paint cracked when you moved. i think it’s gonna need a second coat once it’s all dry.

zuko groans, flopping back into the dirt. sokka tries really hard not to smirk. he tries really, really hard. (and he fails, but zuko is too busy wallowing to see, so it’s okay.)

* * *

boiling rock does not go as planned. zuko had done his job as a pretend-guard well enough, and sokka had been the _best_ pretend-prisoner in the world, thank you very much, but upon discovering that his father wasn’t there (but suki was!) their plans had veered sharply. then dad had arrived seconds before they escaped, and sokka—

spirits, sokka had been so relieved. the guilt that had curdled in his chest ever since he abandoned their warriors on the day of black sun at last began to ease, and he could breathe again. his father had been dressed in fire nation reds, his wings clipped brutally short, but he didn’t look injured or ill or unduly distressed. sokka wanted to run to him, to bury himself against his chest, to wrap his wings around him the way dad done for him when he was little, to tell him that everything was going to be okay because they’re finally together again, but—

but he stays rooted in place. they need a plan. they need sokka to guide them through making that plan—and then, _then,_ he’ll hug his father and he’ll never let go. 

their new plan works ridiculously well, in sokka’s opinion (meaning it doesn’t fall apart within the first hour of him making it), but it doesn’t go perfectly. they find themselves stuck on a gondola as it grates to a halt over a boiling lake because _of course they do,_ just their luck, really, and when sokka glances back towards the island he sees a flash of black-and-gold that send a familiar pang of panic through his chest. he swings his eyes around just to check that zuko is, in fact, still on board the gondola with them.

“azula,” zuko explains stiffly, his hands balling into fists. if he notices the suspicion (however brief) in sokka’s eyes, he doesn’t comment on it. “shit.”

sokka thinks that’s a pretty accurate assessment of the situation.

“we have to fly,” zuko says, already reaching for the buckles on his wings’ armor plating. sokka stops him with a hand on his shoulders. “what?”

sokka shakes his head. “we can’t.”

“what do you mean we can’t? of course we can! we have to go before azula gets here, or—”

“my dad’s wings are clipped, and so are suki’s,” sokka says, gesturing towards the other two prisoners. (he’s lucky his own wings weren’t clipped the instant he set foot on the island, although he knows it would have happened eventually—and probably sooner rather than later). “they can’t fly, and i am _not_ leaving them behind.”

zuko exhales sharply, his own wings slumping. “alright,” he says. “then we’d better get ready for a fight.”

sokka, zuko, and suki climb to the top of the gondola as azula and ty lee move towards them. as soon as the two of them land on the gondola’s roof, zuko slides a foot back and squares off with his sister while suki prowls around to confront ty lee. sokka hesitates, but azula seems like the more formidable opponent, and he knows that suki is more than capable of holding her own. she’s, like, a total badass. so sokka moves to stand beside zuko, who flashes him a surprised look. 

that’s all they have time for, before azula lunges.

azula is as savage as ever. even zuko, who sokka imagines must have been sparring with her since he was a toddler, has a hard time deflecting her blows. neither of them, he realizes, use their wings as they fight. they’re all fists and fire and bared teeth, dancing around each other on top of the gondola with their armored wings held flat to their backs. he sees zuko flare his wings once, but only to catch his balance. then they’re slammed back into place, and zuko lurches forward and blasts a streamer of fire at azula with his feet firmly on the ground. 

sokka, for his part, uses his wings when he can. if azula can’t fly with all that armor on her wings, then sokka is going damn well going to use that to his advantage. he harries her from above, keeping azula’s attention split between himself and zuko, prying at her defenses so zuko can claw his way inside of them. 

then the warden gets free, and the guards begin to cut the wire, and sokka is feeling very, _very_ frightened for dad and suki because if this gondola falls, then—

then so do they.

sokka is debating how much weight he can carry in flight when azula and ty lee spring off of their gondola and onto the one headed back towards the island. surely if he and chit sang worked together, they could carry dad, and zuko could be convinced to carry suki. (provided that he can actually fly, of course, and wasn’t just bullshitting sokka when he asked—because despite zuko’s insistence that he _can,_ sokka has yet to seem him try.) 

there’s a flurry of movement from the island, suddenly, and then the gondola lurches and begins to move again. sokka whips around to see red clothes and white wings. for a moment his heart stops. his first thought is that it’s bato, who’d somehow arrived after dad without any of them knowing, and if that’s the case they need to go back for him _right now._ then he looks closer, and he sees that that’s clearly not the case. 

the person standing near the gondola’s controls looks nothing like bato. she’s dressed in long red robes with drooping sleeves. her skin is pale, and her hair is almost as dark as zuko’s wings and lays flat and sleek to the middle of her back. her wings are clearly fire nation wings, heavy and membranous and armor-plated, but the color doesn’t make sense. they should be brown, or gray, or black, not—not _white._

“mai,” zuko breathes, his eyes shining. 

sokka whips around to look at him. “excuse me, _who_ and _why?”_

“mai. she is—or, uh, was?—my girlfriend.” zuko scuffs the floor of the gondola with one boot, cheeks faintly pink. spirits, does he actually look _shy_ right now? why is that _cute?_ “i locked her in a cell but i guess she got out. and i mean, if she wants to help us i’m not gonna complain, but i kinda thought she was pissed at me. i guess it’s...complicated.”

“oh.” sokka clears his throat. zuko has some weird relationships, that’s all he’s gonna say. “she’s, uh. pretty?”

zuko squints, like he’s trying to decide whether that’s a compliment or not. sokka’s honestly not sure either. “...thanks? i’ll tell her you think so if i ever see her again?”

“right.” sokka wants to ask about the wings. he has to ask about the wings. it is a very pressing matter. “what’s wrong with her wings?”

“what? nothing.” zuko bristles indignantly. “they’re perfect.”

“woah, easy there, tiger, i didn’t mean to say they weren’t. i just mean, uh—i’ve never seen anybody from the fire nation with wings like that. does she dye them or something?”

“oh. no, she was born that way. the color’s pretty uncommon, but it’s not unheard of. but everybody thinks white wings are bad luck. it makes her kind of touchy about them.”

“what do you think?”

“i think that basing an opinion off of someone’s physical traits is stupid.” zuko folds his arms across his chest, scowling. 

“yeah,” sokka says, glancing briefly at zuko (at that gruesome, warped scar tissue around his eye). “i guess you’re right.”

“come on. let’s get out of here.”

after they get back to aang and the others, things are...different. good different! at least—at least sokka hopes. he has a hard time disliking zuko, now. it’s easy not to trust him, easy to think he’s a jerk (because he still _is,_ sometimes), and easy to tease him, but it’s not easy to hate him the way he used to. because of zuko, sokka has dad _and_ suki back in his life. that’s not a favor he’ll forget. besides, if zuko really were a fire nation spy, why would he help break out two of their most important prisoners? it wouldn’t make sense. it’s clear that zuko isn’t on the fire nation’s side, not anymore, and he may even (and sokka is still very tentative about this part) be on aang’s. 

unfortunately, his growing acceptance of zuko drives a wedge between himself and katara, who is _determined_ to openly antagonize their resident firebender whenever she can. it seems like overkill to sokka, honestly. the guy’s clearly suffered for his shitty decisions, and he’s trying to make up for them. sokka could understand if katara didn’t want to forgive him—that’s her right, and sokka isn’t going to try to force her to forgive zuko when he has a hard time doing so himself—but does she _have_ to go out of her way to scorn him? it makes mealtimes tense, and even sokka’s usual jokes struggle to lighten the mood. 

toph helps him out in the _chill everybody out_ department, for once. a few days after their return from the boiling rock, she begins to molt. katara fusses over toph’s wings, grooming her new primaries as they grow in, and that distracts her (however temporarily) from her recently-acquired hobby of loathing zuko. as soon as toph’s new feathers are in and healthy, sokka makes good on an old promise.

“so?” he says, standing in front of toph and setting his hands on his hips. “are you ready?”

toph squints up at him, curling her toes into the dirt. “ready for what?”

“to learn how to fly, duh. unless you’re gonna chicken out?”

toph’s eyes widen, her feathers fluffing in surprise. then she jumps to her feet, jabbing sokka in the chest with her finger. “nobody calls me _chicken,_ ponytail. bring it on—but if you let me fall, i’ll break every bone in your body.”

sokka beams. he, katara, aang, and toph clamber into appa’s saddle, their eyes shining with excitement. it’s a perfect day for it—the sky above is clear and blue and cloudless, the winds still and calm. the heat of the fire nation is stifling and muggy, but nothing that can’t be endured. if they can fly high enough, they’ll cool down, but sokka isn’t getting his hopes up. he’s just not sure how well this is going to go.

“this is gonna be so awesome,” aang says, clearly without the same reservations, as he wraps his hands around appa’s reins. his wings are practically vibrating with energy. katara laughs and sets a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

“hey, what about sparky?” toph asks, her brow furrowing.

katara grimaces. “he doesn’t fly like us, toph. he won’t be any help.”

“what do you mean he doesn’t fly? he has wings. i’ve heard them.”

“yes, but not—not like us.” katara reaches around, fussing with her own dark feathers. “firebenders don’t fly the same way as everyone else. their wings are different. he can’t teach you anything you need to know.”

“so?” toph demands. “i want him to be there too. zuko, c’mon, get up here.”

zuko, who had been warming himself next to their campfire, startles and glances over. “...what?”

“get on the bison. we’re going flying,” toph orders. 

“oh. i don’t—i’m not really—”

“it’s my first flight. you _have_ to be there.”

zuko wilts, and sokka has to laugh. toph has that guy wrapped around her little finger already. katara glowers as zuko makes his way into appa’s saddle, and he settles down as far from her as he can get, huddling down to make himself less of a conspicuous target for her ire. aang flicks the reins, and then they’re off. sokka scoots over to sit next to toph, trying to remember how his parents had taught him to fly, all those years ago. 

“why are we taking appa?” toph asks. “i thought the point was to teach _me_ how to fly.”

“it is, but taking off is gonna be hard for you, since your wings are so little,” sokka explains. “you haven’t used them, so they’re weak. they’ll get bigger and stronger if you keep flying, and then you’ll be able to take off from the ground—but for now, i think it’ll be better to start from somewhere up high.”

toph hesitates, then nods. her face is set and her jaw locked stubbornly, but sokka can see the glint of fear in her eyes. 

“hey.” he leans over, nudging her with his shoulder. “you’re gonna be okay. we’re not gonna let you fall. i’ll be right next to you the whole time to keep you from crashing, and if you get too close to the ground, aang’ll have appa get beneath us so we land in the saddle. right, aang?”

“right!” aang flashes them a wide grin and a thumbs-up. “you guys are in good hands.”

“you’re gonna do great, toph.” katara reaches out, squeezing toph’s hand. toph, after several seconds, laces their fingers together and squeezes back. 

sokka stands, widening his stance to keep his balance on appa’s back. he urges toph to stand, too, and she does. she’s not nearly as shaky as she once was in the saddle, having become accustomed to the bison’s movements in flight, and she keeps her balance as easily as he does. 

“spread your wings,” he instructs, and toph does. the wind tugs at her wings, and she sways in place. zuko jumps up and offers her his arm—she quickly grasps it, letting him balance her. sokka moves to stand behind her, resting one hand on her wing. “alright, once you’re in the air, you’re gonna want to move your wings up and down.”

“no shit,” toph says, her voice wry. 

“easier said than done.” sokka uses his hand to move her wing slowly through the correct movement. “if you want to go faster, you can angle them back some, but we’re not gonna try that this time. just staying in the air is our goal for today.”

“you really have an abundance of confidence in me.”

“oh, no, this is gonna be a mess,” sokka says, patting her head. “the first time i flew, my dad threw me at the sea. i made it about ten feet before i dove into a turtleseal and gave myself a bloody nose.”

“that explains a lot, actually,” toph says.

katara laughs. “i remember that. mom was so mad.”

“yeah, it was kind of awful.” sokka grins. “this is gonna be a piece of cake in comparison, toph. no turtleseals for miles around. now, if you want to glide, you have to hold your wings up and cup the air with them. learning how to do that is a little more hands-on. you kind of have to get a feel for moving with the wind.”

“but for now,” katara says, stepping up onto the edge of appa’s saddle, “just try to slow your fall.”

katara leaps, diving beneath appa. she surges back up several seconds later, gliding in an elegant circle around them. sokka steps onto the edge of appa’s saddle, next, taking toph’s hand. she hesitates, digging her fingers into zuko’s forearm. zuko winces, but he doesn’t say a word, and that just makes it even harder to dislike him, doesn’t it? damn. 

zuko pats toph’s hand in clumsy encouragement. “you don’t have to unless you want to.”

that gives sokka pause. he hadn’t even _thought_ that toph wouldn’t want to. flying is so natural, so _vital,_ that he’d never stopped to think that maybe toph didn’t need it the way he did. but of course, she doesn’t. “yeah, toph,” he says. “if you don’t want to, we aren’t gonna make you. i promise it’s alright.”

“i don’t know that i’ll like it,” toph says, her eyes narrowing in determination, “but i at least want to try.”

“then go try,” zuko says. his voice is warmer than sokka’s ever heard it. “kick sokka’s ass for me while you’re at it.”

“hey!”

“you got it, sparky.” a wild grin spreads across toph’s face, and she seizes sokka’s hand and steps onto the edge of appa’s saddle. she takes a deep breath, then nods. “okay. let’s do this.”

sokka keeps a firm grip on toph’s hand, helping her to balance on the side of the saddle (and praying to whatever spirits will listen that no sudden wind jars them). “alright,” he says. “you’re gonna jump, and you’re gonna fall. don’t spread your wings all at once. open them slowly, so they don’t get yanked back, and try to flap. it’s gonna be hard; it takes a lot of strength. katara and i are going to keep level with you. we’ll help you stop when you get too close to the ground, and appa’ll catch us. if you want to stop before that, just shout for one of us and we’ll grab you. deal?”

“deal,” toph says. she takes another deep, steadying breath. 

“jump whenever you’re ready. i’ll be right behind you.”

toph squeezes her eyes shut, her fingers trembling faintly where they remain latched to sokka’s hand. then, slowly, she lets go, and she jumps. sokka jumps right after her, keeping his wings folded to fall with her, and he hears aang whoop with delight behind them. toph flails for a moment, her eyes wide and frantic as she plummets towards the distant ground. sokka flicks a wing out to turn himself, angling closer to her just in case she decides she wants to stop. on her other side, he sees katara do the same. 

then, to sokka’s relief, toph twists herself to face into the wind and gingerly begins to spread her wings. “yeah, toph!” sokka shouts over the wind. “that’s it!”

toph’s face sets in that familiar determination of hers, and she presses her wings farther out. the wind catches at them and throws her backwards—or, more aptly, it slows her fall while sokka plummets past her. whoops. he yelps and spreads his own wings, waiting for toph to drop to his level again. when she does, she’s moving much more slowly than she was before. it’s clear that she’s struggling to beat her wings against the force of the wind, but there’s nothing sokka can do to help her, there. it’s a struggle she’ll have to work through on her own. he just hopes her little wings are strong enough for it. 

as it turns out, they are. several hundred feet above the ground, toph finally manages to pull out of her fall. she flaps her wings frantically, but hovering in place isn’t something anybody but weirdo airbenders like aang can do—she’ll have to move forward. sokka says as much. “c’mon, go straight forward. you won’t hit anything. we’re still way far away from the ground.”

“this is,” toph says, panting for breath, “horrific.”

“do you want to stop?”

“no way!”

sokka laughs, and toph flies in jagged lines aimed more by than wind than by her own will. they’re still going down, albeit at a slower rate—she hasn’t learned enough to move forward and up at the same time, not yet. soon, they’ll need to rest and try again, but sokka thinks that was a damn good first run. 

“appa’s coming,” katara calls to them. “toph, he’s gonna get below us so we can land in the saddle. when we tell you to drop, put your feet down and slow yourself as much as you can with your wings.”

toph flashes them a thumbs-up. appa swings around to hover below them, lowing a soft greeting as he does. toph lands a little, uh, less elegantly than sokka would have hoped. she slams feet-first into appa’s saddle, hammering her wings desperately to try and lighten the landing. she pitches forward as soon as her toes touch down, dropping to her knees. her wings slump to either side of her, and sokka can see them shaking.

shit. 

“toph?” he asks, alarmed, as he perches on the edge of appa’s saddle. “are you okay?”

zuko shifts nervously, like he wants to move towards her—but a quick glance at katara keeps him rooted in place. 

“that,” toph says through choppy breaths, “was, and i cannot emphasize this enough, _terrifying.”_

katara alights on the saddle next to her, gently helping her fold her exhausted wings back into place against her back. “and you still did so good,” she says. “that was amazing for a first try, toph! we’re so proud of you.”

toph drops back into seiza, pushing her hair out of her face. sokka settles down next to her, pride welling in his own chest. he thinks, maybe, that this is how mom and dad felt the first time he managed to fly without giving himself head trauma. “it was super good,” he agrees. “not gonna lie, i totally expected you to chicken out like halfway down.”

toph slugs him in the shoulder, which yeah, okay, he deserved.

“toph that was _so cool!”_ aang shouts, jumping from appa’s head into his saddle. momo, perched on his arm, chatters enthusiastically in agreement. “i wanna go with you next time!”

toph grins at them, her cheeks tinted pink at the praise. “thanks, guys,” she says. “it was pretty badass, huh?”

sokka doesn’t miss the way her head tilts, however subtly, in zuko’s direction. zuko still sits uncomfortably near the back of the saddle, his hands on his knees—but as their group quiets down, he asks, “did you like it?”

toph pauses, mulling the question over. “no,” she decides, eventually, and zuko nods. “but i didn’t _hate_ it. it was...scary, and weird, but i think it would be a useful thing to know. i may not ever be able to fly on my own, but if we need to retreat in the air i don’t want to be the one holding you guys back. i want to try again.”

sokka and katara beam at each other. aang drapes himself across toph’s back, hugging her loosely and chattering about the next jump. a small, warm look flickers through zuko’s eyes, and his shoulders relax ever-so-slightly. 

after toph’s had a chance to rest her wings and catch her breath, aang and katara take her out for another jump. sokka lounges between appa’s horns, the reins gathered in his hands as they follow their friends down. zuko keeps to his spot, although he spreads out some once katara is gone, stretching his legs in front of him and leaning back on his hands.

“toph’s pretty impressive, huh?” sokka asks.

“yeah,” zuko agrees. “she’s a strong kid. she’ll be flying in no time.”

“what about you?”

“what about me?”

“how’d you learn to fly?”

“why does it matter?”

“man, i’m just trying to make conversation over here. pitch in a little.”

zuko sniffs, his wings flexing nervously before pinning against his back again. they’re always there, against his back, never spread loose or stretched out, and sokka cannot possibly comprehend how that’s comfortable. he knows he’d be cramped within hours if he tried it. fire nation wings, man. he’ll never understand them.

an addendum, actually: fire nation _citizens_. he’ll never understand them.

“my tutors taught me when i was a baby,” zuko says, finally. “we can fly earlier than you can, since we don’t have to wait on feathers to grow in. i was too little to even remember being taught. it just feels like i’ve always been able to do it.”

oh, tui and la, that’s a poorly-disguised brag if sokka’s ever heard one. “hey, just because the rest of us don’t pop out of our moms ready to get thrown into the sky doesn't mean we’re not _just_ as good at flying.”

“i didn’t say that!”

“it was heavily implied.”

“it was not!”

“was too!”

“was _not!”_

they’re still bickering when toph, katara, and aang land (er, crash, on toph’s part) in the saddle again. zuko immediately simmers down when he sees katara, averting his eyes and pressing his lips into a thin line, and something unhappy twists in sokka’s chest as he does. he struggles to refocus his attention.

“so?” he asks toph eagerly. she’s slumped onto her knees again, wings drooping. “how was it?”

“she did really great,” aang says, bouncing on his toes. “i can’t believe she’s never flown before!”

toph shakes her wings out before dragging them in. “aang helped. he changed the air to make it easier, so i think i got a better feel for it this time.”

“do you want to try again?” katara asks. “or are you ready to rest?”

toph pants breathlessly for a moment. “one more time,” she decides. then she points a finger at zuko—or in zuko’s general direction, anyway. “but i want to go with _him.”_

zuko stiffens almost immediately, his eyes widening in alarm. “with—uh, with _me?”_

“yeah, you. i may be blind but i _know_ who i’m pointing at. let’s go.”

“i—i, um—”

toph climbs onto the lip of appa’s saddle, and zuko scrambles to her side. 

“i’m going too,” katara says, planting herself firmly on toph’s other side. sokka’s not going to lie—he _definitely_ wants to go with them. he’s never seen zuko fly before, and here’s his chance! but it would be suspicious, wouldn’t it, if both he and katara went. it would undoubtedly make zuko feel more mistrusted than he already does; it would make him feel like they’re keeping a closer eye on him than they really are.

a closer eye than sokka’s keeping on him, anyway. he can’t speak for katara.

plus, he has no doubt that it would piss toph off. she’s zuko’s biggest fan, and sokka doesn’t want to insinuate that he doesn’t trust the guy in front of her. which, okay, he _doesn’t_ trust the guy _—_ not all the way, not completely, but at least he trusts him more than he used to! he’s improving! toph does _not_ need to step on his toes and go on another rant about his alpha male complex and general paranoia again, thank _you._

(besides, he thinks a little paranoia is warranted, given literally everything that’s happened to him in his life.) 

so he stays with aang on appa’s back, however reluctantly, while zuko sheds the metal plating on his wings and jumps into the air alongside toph and katara. the three of them dive quickly out of view, and aang snaps the reins to guide appa downwards. sokka doesn’t get to see much of the flight at all, and katara’s disdainful expression when they land tells him nothing he didn’t already know.

but as they all settle in on their sleeping mats that night, sokka sees zuko’s wings trembling sporadically under their armor plating as he curls up, and he wonders (and worries) himself into sleep.

* * *

after zuko and katara go on their little revenge-quest-turned-field-trip, things are good. things are really, really good. (you know, the whole war and conquest and impending doom thing aside.) there’s significantly less bickering in their group as a whole, and mealtimes no longer feel like pulling teeth. sokka’s jokes actually get everyone to _laugh_. zuko and katara both seem more relaxed around each other; sokka even saw them sitting together (willingly!) at breakfast yesterday, so it’s—

well, it’s a little bit of a surprise when he wakes up to see them fighting each other.

zuko takes a step forward, punching the air in front of him—a streamer of fire flares forward, directly towards sokka’s baby sister. sokka is scrambling out of his sleeping mat and onto his feet before he even has time to think, but he really shouldn’t have worried. katara dances a few steps backwards, pulling the water from her flask and throwing it towards zuko’s fire in an arcing wave. the two collide with a hiss of steam. sokka springs between them before they can do anything else _stupid._

“what,” he demands, wings arched imperiously, “the _hell,_ guys.”

zuko and katara both stare at him, like _he’s_ the crazy one. he’s not the crazy one! he’s really not! zuko relaxes out of his offensive stance, dropping his hands. “sorry we woke you,” he says, like that’s the problem.

sokka’s feathers bristle, his hands curling into fists. “i don’t care about that! we shouldn’t be fighting right now, we can’t—”

“sokka, it’s okay,” katara says, fond amusement in her voice. she crosses over to him, gently patting his feathers back down. “we were just sparring, that’s all.”

“oh.” sokka straightens back up. “oh. i thought…”

he doesn’t need to finish. it’s pretty obvious what he thought—which, okay, he cannot be blamed for thinking they were out to maul each other! two weeks ago they would have been! 

“isn’t that dangerous?” he asks, glancing between the both of them. he’s seen bending get out of hand before, and he doesn’t want them to hurt each other. besides, zuko and katara can both be...volatile.

“i’m being careful,” katara assures him. then she glances over at zuko, who’s staring guiltily at his feet. “and so is he. he wouldn’t hurt me.”

zuko’s eyes widen. “uh—no, right, no, i wouldn’t,” he says, rubbing his arm. “i’ve been working to control my fire so it doesn’t get out of hand, even when i’m fighting. katara’s helping.”

“we’ll be okay.” katara gently pushes him out of the way. “go get some breakfast.”

sokka goes to get some breakfast, although he keeps one careful eye on them as he eats—but katara was right. zuko doesn’t fight the way he used to. his bending, which used to be so aggressive and overwhelming, now seems sharp and precise. each move is clearly thought out and planned for; sokka even sees him _pull back_ a ribbon of flame when it gets too close to katara’s skin. 

some tight, worried thing in his chest relaxes, and he finally looks away from them.

but he really can’t resist—he’s _seen_ zuko’s swords, and he has at least three lost fights to get him back for. the next day, once zuko’s finished aang’s firebending training, sokka hops into his path and spreads his wings. zuko stops, looking him up and down. he has the nerve to look unimpressed. 

“what?” he asks, arching his singular eyebrow. 

“i challenge you,” sokka says, pointing at his chest, “to a duel.”

“a duel.”

“you heard me. man to man, sword to sword, and none of that funny magic fire business this time.”

“then you can’t use the boomerang.”

“deal.” boomerang _is_ almost as intimidating as firebending, after all. “meet me by the lake.”

while zuko goes to get his swords, sokka finds a clear, sandy spot beside the lake. he stretches out his arms and wings, then turns his sword in his hands to get a feel for its weight again. the black blade gleams under the sunlight. zuko squints at it when he arrives, his own dao swords gripped loosely in his hands.

“what kind of steel is that?”

“oh, it’s not steel,” sokka says, waggling his eyebrows. “this is a _starsword.”_

“...you’re kinda weird, you know that?”

“take it back!”

zuko snorts—the closest thing to a laugh sokka’s ever heard from him—and squares off. the two of them clash with a screech of steel (and _star metal)._ zuko fights with a blade the way he fights with fire: firm and focused and obviously more experienced than sokka. still, sokka puts up a damn good fight. zuko is panting by the time he pins sokka in the sand, one blade to his throat and the other jabbed through his shirtsleeve to hold him down. 

sokka’s pride smarts, but not as much as it did when zuko was an enemy. 

“huh,” zuko says, like he’s surprised. “you’re pretty good.”

sokka blinks at him. was that...was that actually a compliment?

then zuko adds, “why didn’t you fight like that all the times we fought before? maybe you would’ve actually stood a chance.”

this _asshole._

sokka explodes upwards, flapping his wings to bat zuko off of him. zuko yelps and yanks his swords back, scowling. 

“be more careful!” he snaps, sheathing his swords. “i could have stabbed you.” he shudders. “and then your sister would _really_ kill me.”

“again,” sokka demands, lifting his sword. “let’s go again.”

“why? i said you did good.”

“not good enough.”

“you’re not gonna beat me,” zuko says, like it’s a simple _fact,_ and sokka grinds his teeth. 

“what? because you’re from the _fire nation_ and you’re all _so much better_ than some backwater peasant from the water tribe and—”

“no, dumbass, because i’ve been training since i was four. i have years more experience than you have. i’ve never even _seen_ you with a sword before today, so you have to have picked it up recently, right?”

sokka looks grudgingly at him. “...about two months ago.”

“then that’s _incredible!”_ zuko says, throwing his arms wide. “you’ve only been using a sword for two months and you can already keep an experienced swordsman on his toes for almost five minutes? sokka, seriously. you’re doing great. if you keep practicing, you’ll be a master in no time.”

sokka waits for it.

“so don’t be such a sore loser. doesn’t the water tribe know how to accept defeat with dignity?”

ah, there it is. zuko just can’t give out a nice, neat compliment, can he? “i’m not a sore loser,” sokka grumbles.

a hint of a smirk flickers across zuko’s face, and he settles one hand on the hilt of his sword again. “i can make you one, if you really want to go again.”

sokka eyes him mistrustfully and takes a step away.

“besides,” zuko says, folding his arms across his chest and glancing out across the lake, “you’re better than me at lots of things, even it’s not this.”

“oh?” sokka arches an eyebrow. he _does_ like getting his ego stroked. “do go on.”

“if only you were as good at fishing for food as you are at fishing for compliments. we’d eat like kings.”

“i’m going to destroy you and everything you love.”

zuko laughs—actually _laughs,_ holy shit. “seriously, though. you, uh—you can fish and hunt a lot better than i can, for one thing. plus you know how to use a boomerang as a weapon, and how to start a campfire without bending, and how to build all sorts of weird stuff. you can fly better, too.”

sokka waits.

and waits.

...and waits.

“what?” he demands, finally. “no take-backsies? no snide comment? this isn’t one of your backhanded compliments?”

“no!” zuko bristles indignantly. “i can be genuinely nice sometimes!”

“hm.”

“i _can!”_ oh, tui and la, he looks like he’s about to pout. he really is a prince. “i’m just...bad at it, sometimes.” he pauses. “most times.”

sokka comes to stand beside him, reaching out with a wing and knocking him playfully on the back. “well, you’re getting better at it. for someone who’s only been on the good guys’ side a few months, you’re doing great. maybe one day you’ll even be as nice as i am, since i’ve been practicing my whole life. just don’t expect to beat me anytime soon.”

zuko groans, and sokka smirks.

“hey, so,” sokka says, once zuko’s finished giving him the stink-eye, “i was gonna try to catch some fish for lunch. i could show you how; it’d be nice to have some help.”

“oh, uh—yeah, sure. i probably won’t be any good at it, but…”

sokka grins, then runs towards the lake and launches himself into the air with a few strong wingbeats. “well, then, come on! i’ll give you a bona fide water tribe fishing lesson.”

“wait, who the hell fishes while they’re flying? i can’t do that!”

“which is exactly why you’re going to learn. come on, buddy, i’ve never gotten to see you fly. it’ll be fun.”

“fun and flying do _not_ go together.” scowling, zuko begins to unbuckle the armor on his wings. “you’d better make it a quick lesson. i’m not—i can’t stay in the air for very long.”

“is that a weird-fire-nation-wings thing or a you thing?”

“both.” 

zuko spreads his wings, then takes a deep breath and lurches into the air. he takes off like a fledgling, slow and clumsy, and sokka can’t help but frown. what kind of weird customs does the fire nation have that makes them such—well, for lack of a more diplomatic term, _bad—_ fliers? or is this just a zuko thing? come to think of it, he’s never seen another firebender fly. zuko fumbles his way to sokka’s height, then rotates his wings and—

“what the hell, man?” sokka demands, aghast. “you can’t do that!”

zuko, who is _hovering like an airbender,_ looks irritably at him. “do _what?”_

“hover! i thought only airbenders could do that! since when have firebenders been able to?”

“not all firebenders can. it’s the sixth joint.” zuko gestures to the sharp joints in his wings—not three or four or five, but six. “the royal family always has it.”

“that is so unfair!”

“spirits, i’m _sorry,_ why don’t i just yank one of my bones out so i’m even with the rest of you? it’s got to be less painful than listening to you whine.”

sokka squints at him. “if we weren’t friends, i’d dropkick you into the ocean.”

zuko blinks, startled—by what, sokka isn’t sure. but his wings falter, and he winces as he struggles to regain his balance in the air. “whatever. can we get on with the lesson, sifu fisherman? this really isn’t pleasant.”

“right.” sokka flies in slow circles around zuko, since he can’t hover like some assholes can, as he explains. “if you look down, you’re gonna be able to see fish. they’ll usually be a big cluster of movement underwater. when you see one, you tuck your wings and dive at ‘em as fast as you can. break the water with your hands and then grab one. easy!”

zuko pinches the bridge of his nose.

“look, i’ll demonstrate,” sokka says, and he turns his gaze to the water. the sun’s higher than he’d like it to be, and the winking of the light off of the waves makes spotting a school of fish harder than usual—but he manages. as soon as he sees them, he snaps his wings in and dives. he slices through the water, squeezing his eyes shut and stretching out his hands. the second his fingers brush against cold scales, he grabs, and he surfaces with a terribly unhappy fish flopping in his hands. “ha! see, just like that!”

“there is absolutely no way,” zuko says quite decisively, “that i will ever be able to do that.”

and then he folds his own wings in and crashes into the water with an enormous splash. sokka yelps, and the fish squirms its way out of his shock-slackened hands and escapes. 

“man,” he whines when zuko breaks through the surface of the water. “you suck.”

zuko splashes him. sokka splashes back, because no _way_ is he letting a challenge like that go unanswered. before long he’s laughing, soaked to the bone and using his wings to fling waves of warm water towards zuko. for his part, zuko looks absolutely bedraggled. his wings shiver where he holds them against his back, and his hair flops soggily into his eyes—but he’s smiling, and that makes something soften in sokka’s chest.

“you should know better,” he says when zuko finally cries mercy and claws his way onto the shore, flopping belly-first into the sand, “than to challenge a warrior of the water tribe to a water fight!”

“well, look at that,” zuko mumbles. “you did teach me something—just not fishing.”

sokka drags himself onto the shore, flopping down away from zuko so he can spread his wings out. after several seconds drying in the sun, he peeks over at his companion.

“you’re doing it wrong,” he says.

“of course i am.”

sokka stands and squelches over to him—ugh, he has water in his shoes, that’s so _gross._ he takes the edge of zuko’s tightly-folded wing in hand. zuko jolts, looking suspiciously at sokka, but he doesn’t pull away; that’s all the permission sokka needs. he gently pulls zuko’s wing out and away from his body, laying it down on the sand, before doing the same to his other wing. 

“there,” he says, satisfied. “sunning.”

“you’re so weird,” zuko repeats adamantly before burying his face in his arms again—but he keeps his wings spread, soaking in the sunshine alongside sokka, and it’s...nice. it’s really nice. 

* * *

when zuko goes to see his uncle at the white lotus camp, he doesn’t wear the armor on his wings. sokka notices, because zuko _always_ wears his armor. he’d asked why, once, and zuko had replied: “having them exposed is dangerous. our wings aren’t like yours. they’re thin, and they’re delicate, and they’re easy to burn and break and slice. one well-placed blow and we won’t ever fly again. it’s important to keep them shielded.”

so sokka has to wonder why he’s leaving them exposed when he goes to see his uncle. is it a gesture of trust? a way of saying _i know you won’t hurt me even if i’m vulnerable?_ that would be sweet, but somehow—somehow, sokka doesn’t think it’s anything so touching. the way zuko looks walking into that tent…

he’s terrified. 

and then sokka remembers the burnt edges of zuko’s wings, remembers that agni kais are done unarmored, and he has to swallow hard and fight to keep from running in after zuko. zuko would let his uncle hurt him, if his uncle wanted to—sokka is suddenly, horribly certain of it. he wouldn’t even bother fighting back. he’d just lay there and take it and think he deserved it. 

_fuck_ that.

sokka sits near the tent, along with the rest of his friends, and waits. nothing happens—there’s no shouting, no screams or pouring smoke, not even a raised voice. when zuko emerges again, he’s uninjured, and he has his uncle at his side and a smile on his face. sokka lets go of a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding, his shoulders slumping in relief. 

iroh looks the same as did the last few times sokka has seen him—portly, with pale hair and warm golden eyes to match zuko’s. his wings are like zuko’s, too, although the delicate scales near the bases are dull and graying. the way he carries his wings is nothing like any firebender sokka’s ever seen (except, perhaps, for master piandao). he holds them loose and unarmored, and he gestures with them like a—a waterbender, or an earthbender, or an airbender, like he has actual human emotions and wants to communicate them.

they aren’t together long, but it’s long enough for sokka to decide he likes iroh very much and would not complain if he were to become firelord—but no. they all know who the future firelord is, and that night mr. future firelord curls himself up small and anxious and armored on his sleeping mat. sokka spreads his own sleeping mat next to him, sprawling out and looking up at the endless, wheeling stars above them. aang, toph, and katara join them a few moments later. 

they all push their sleeping mats together, curling up with each other. sokka takes one end of their pile, draping a wing protectively over as many bodies as he can. on the other side, katara does the same, her wingtip resting gently over his. even zuko, who’s usually stiff and unyielding during group cuddles, begins to relax. his back and metal-plated wings press sharply against sokka’s chest as toph burrows into his stomach. aang sprawls out beside toph, one leg draped over hers, one arm trapped beneath katara, and his iridescent wings...somewhere, probably squashed. 

tomorrow, they’ll go to finish a war—for better or for worse—but tonight, they have each other, and they are safe, and everything is okay. (sokka tries desperately not to think about how at this time tomorrow, they may all have been slaughtered.)

* * *

sokka has had a lot of emotions in life—like, _a lot_ a lot. he’s an emotional guy, what can he say? a tough guy! a tough, emotional guy. so he has experience in the realm of feeling things, both bad and good, but this _thing_ that he feels when he sees katara and zuko alive after the war? he’s never felt anything like that before. it feels way too big for his body. it makes him shake. 

they’re in the palace infirmary. zuko lays in one of the cots, drowned in pristine white sheets and bandages. katara sits next to him, gripping one of his hands. sokka’s breath comes thick and choppy. he’s crying, he realizes. tears stream down his cheeks to wobble on the edges of his jaw before splattering against the floor. 

aang leads the charge forward, bawling enthusiastically. “you’re okay!” 

katara’s eyes snap open, her expression melting in one of pure relief as she sees them all. she surges to her feet, opening her arms, and aang slams into her. she hugs him tightly, pressing her lips to the top of his head and whispering something sokka can’t hear. toph surges forward next, and sokka hobbles slowly—but no less enthusiastically!—after them. the four of them embrace, crying into each other. arms wrap around shoulders and necks, and wings come up to fold over each other until they’re nothing but a tangle of limbs and feathers and tears. 

“you’re all okay?” katara asks, cupping toph’s cheek in one hand and sokka’s in the other. “sokka, your leg—”

“it’s okay,” sokka says, his voice raspy with emotion. he sniffles and scrubs at his eyes. “it’s just a little broken.”

katara catches his hand and squeezes it tightly. “i’ll try to help heal it as soon as i can, but i used so much energy on zuko…”

“it’s really okay. it can wait,” sokka assures her. 

“what happened to zuko?” toph asks, her voice unusually small. “is he gonna be okay?”

their eyes all swing towards their firebender. he looks so terribly small in the cot, his chest rising and falling in gulping, shallow breaths. his eyes are closed, screwed shut in pain, and he doesn’t react to their voices at all. toph fumbles for his hand, lacing their fingers together to feel his heartbeat. 

“he’ll be okay, don’t worry,” katara says soothingly. “he just needs to rest and recover. when we were fighting azula, she bent lightening at me, and he—” she swallows hard. “he jumped in front of it. he saved me.”

sokka hugs her, resting his chin on top of her head and letting her bury her tears against his shoulder. he’s not glad that zuko was hurt, but spirits, he is so glad his little sister wasn’t killed. he owes zuko so very much. he reaches out to set a hand on zuko’s shoulder, squeezing gently. aang climbs into the cot, arranging himself carefully next to their friend.

“thank you,” aang whispers. “thank you so much, zuko.”

the next few days pass in a blur of activity—activity that sokka and his friends, for the most part, ignore. they’ve done their jobs. let the adults clean up the mess they made of the world. right now, there are bigger things to be worried about, like whether or no zuko is going to live. they spent most of their time in the infirmary. sokka refuses a cot for himself, although he does allow katara to help knit his broken leg together whenever she has energy to spare (which isn’t often, given how very much of it she spends on zuko). 

and zuko...doesn’t wake up. they all sit with him in turns. aang spends his time cuddled up to zuko’s side, telling him quiet stories about the world as it was a hundred years ago. toph sits next to him, always clutching one of his hands. she’s quiet with him, patient in a way sokka didn’t think she could be, and sometimes sokka catches her crying. neither of them mention it. when katara sits with him, she sings quiet lullabies and works her magic water into the horrific injuries beneath his skin. she insists that he’s going to be alright, that he’s recovering, but the longer he sleeps the scarier the whole situation feels. 

when iroh arrives, he refuses to leave zuko’s side for a full two days. he washes zuko with a soft cloth, changes his clothes, and sits and strokes his hair. he insists on rolling zuko’s cot out into the sunshine for a few hours each day, and sokka swears that zuko’s breathing gets easier as soon as he’s outside. sokka and the others join iroh each evening, and they trade stories until the moon arcs high overhead. sokka looks up at that moon, and he begs and begs and begs her because _please he can’t lose another person he loves please he can’t he can’t he just can’t—_

a week after the world’s war was won, zuko opens his eyes, and sokka finally feels like a winner. katara comes running into his room shortly after sunrise, her eyes shining, and sokka knows what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth. “zuko’s awake, come on!”

the two of them race to the infirmary, where they find zuko surrounded by his friends, his flock—his _family._ he looks exhausted, but his eyes are open and he’s moving and he’s smiling and he’s _talking_ and—

“zuko!” sokka shouts, flinging his arms around zuko’s neck and hugging him tightly. zuko freezes for a moment, his hands coming to rest tentatively on sokka’s back. katara hugs him on the other side, and zuko carefully unfolds himself so he can embrace them both—and gently, gently, he lifts his unarmored wings to wrap sokka and katara in them. 

“sokka,” he mumbles, his worlds muffled by sokka’s shoulder because sokka is not letting go, not ever ever ever. “katara.”

“we’re so glad you’re okay,” katara whispers. then, more vehemently, she adds, “don’t _ever_ do that again.”

“trust me, i’m not planning on it.” 

“children, i do think he needs to breathe,” iroh says gently. he rests a hand on sokka’s shoulder, and sokka reluctantly lets himself be guided away from zuko. he wipes his eyes, offering zuko a wobbly smile, and zuko returns it. a year ago, sokka would have never ever even imagined trading smiles with the prince—no, with the _firelord_ of the fire nation.

spirits, his life is weird.

“so?” zuko asks tentatively. “did we win?”

“we won,” aang says, his eyes shining. “everything is going to be better now.”

“...my father?”

“in prison forever,” toph boasts, folding her arms across her chest. “and good riddance.”

zuko nods, and sokka...can’t quite tell if he’s pleased by his father’s survival or not. “we have a lot of work to do,” he says, cupping his hands around the mug of steaming tea iroh pushes at him. 

“nothing that can’t wait until you’ve recovered,” iroh says. “rest, nephew— _all_ of you. the world can wait.”

he’s right. this last year has been spent fighting tooth and nail for the world. it’s injured, now, but so are they—and it’s about damn time, sokka thinks, that they got to focus on healing their own hurts for a while. he rises, and his friends’ eyes follow him up.

“okay,” he says. “i’m gonna go get some snacks, and then we’re all gonna sit here and we’re gonna eat and we’re gonna not worry about stuff and we’re gonna _like it.”_

for once, no one protests, and sokka’s plan goes flawlessly.

**Author's Note:**

> if you’ve managed to get this far, thank you so much for reading!! here are the wing refs, as promised:
> 
> people from the water tribes are based off of arctic seabirds. katara and sokka both have the wings of a juvenile great northern diver. hakoda has the wings of a barnacle goose, while bato is based off of a northern gannet. people in the earth kingdom are based off of songbirds/birds of prey. suki is a common kestrel, and toph is a white rock dove. airbenders are mostly hummingbirds and parrots! aang’s wings are based off of a green violet-ear hummingbird. firebenders are the outliers, being based off of bats instead of birds. zuko and the rest of the royal family are all based off of the (absolutely beautiful) painted bat.
> 
> i'm debating whether or not to add more to this and make it a series?? please let me know if you guys would be interested in seeing that !! :D
> 
> edit: aaaaAAAAAAA OKAY SO [HERE](https://imgur.com/0HvEkqq) IS SOME ART OF THE KIDS AND THEIR DIFFERENT WING TYPES (WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY STUNNING)!!!
> 
> [HERE](https://imgur.com/uKHyV80) IS ADORABLE ART OF SOKKA PAINTING ZUKO'S WINGS !!
> 
> AND [HERE ](https://imgur.com/spzeoH0) IS THE ONE AND ONLY AZULA IN ALL OF HER GLORY !!!
> 
> ALL OF THESE WERE DONE BY[ @BAHOOZEL](https://twitter.com/bahoozel) ON TWITTER! TYSM AGAIN !!!! THEYRE SO PRETTY !!!!!


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